Oh my… I’m going to respond o you avalongod, but I hope the two of us don’t cause this to degenerate into the old do you need faith argument. I do not need faith to not believe in God. There is no proof of God. You can claim that I must have faith that the building next door to won’t turn into a giant lizard and eat me. Or that a large hand will not crush me at any momment. Or that leprechauns do not exist. But, those beliefs are not based on faith, they are based on the absense of evidence supporting them. I possess a very strong opinion that my hands will not start melting in the next two minutes. Is that a position based on faith? No, it’s a position based on science and reason. The same goes for atheism.
I see what Satan is saying, and I agree in the sense that atheism can be a religion–it doesn’t have to be, but it can be. I don’t go into enough religion threads here to know who might or might not fit my definitions of a “religious atheist,” so I have no idea where I would classify Gaudere or DavidB–and, since this is a debate forum, it makes sense to trot out opinions even if you wouldn’t ordinarily–but they are definitely out there. As Satan says, there are those who, in effect, “witness for atheism.” I call them “evangelical atheists.”
The distinction that I’ve found between the types of atheist is this: the ordinary atheist does not believe anything is out there, whereas the evangelical atheist believes nothing is out there. This may seem like hair-splitting, but it’s not–one is simply a lack of belief, while the other is an affirmative belief in the lack. An affirmative belief is one that can be pushed at people; a lack of belief cannot.
avalongod said:
No, that wouldn’t be fair. I’m an agnostic, and my position is very simple–I don’t know what’s out there, and I believe no one else knows either. My response to someone’s assertions about supernatural beings/afterlives/etc., be they Christians, Wiccans, atheists, or anyone else, is: “Oh yeah? Prove it!” I have absolute faith that no one is going to prove anything, and that I will thus not change my mind.
(Does this mean there could be such a thing as an “evangelical agnostic?” It would be hard to do–you’d have to urge people to admit they don’t know something, which wouldn’t go over too well–and I’ve never come across one, but yeah, it would be possible.)
I’ll grant you that my definition of agnostic doesn’t cover everybody who considers themselves such–a lot of people use “agnostic” as a synonym for “religiosly confused,” and that particular bunch might well fit your statement. There are also a fair number of people who call themselves “agnostics” but who are really what I’ll term “pick-and-choose Christians”–they want to more or less believe in Christianity, but also want to avoid the unpallatable parts, so they sort of make it up as they go along. (The only ones I’ve personally known in this catagory are Christian-lites; there may well be the same types for other religions.) I have no idea whether these folks could be said to have any faith in their position or not, since I don’t understand the position to begin with.
I take it you’ve never seen the bumper sticker “evangelical agnostic: I don’t know and you don’t either!” 
quote:
Ooooooh, I was so with you up and until this last sentence. Again this is the sort of witnessing that I see some atheists engage in. The implication to the above sentence (to me at least, and forgive me if I am wrong) is that I, Mister Reasonable Empirical Dude, have faithfully applied objective reason to the issue of "Is there a God" and have come to the only possible conclusion that there is none. Everyone who is not atheist is wrong.
Science does not attempt to, nor is it capable of answering the question of the existence of God, at least at the present time. So introducing science into the argument is in error. There is neither proof for, nor against god, thus your perspective is not scientific. Reason could be applied to come to either conclusion, so long as one remains logical and rational. Reason does not require people to come to the "correct" conclusion (read Francis Bacon on this matter, this is the reason that scientists dropped the use of, well...reason, in favor of empiricism). Thus your opinion may invoke reason, but this does not assure that it is correct. As your position is not scientific, and thus not a demonstrable fact, it is a belief. If, however, you assert that your belief is a fact, you are stating that position, not on evidence, but on faith.I like your definition MisterEcks. I don’t feel comfortable with the idea of religious atheists, it seems to oxymoronic. But evangelical atheist has a nice ring to it.
That’s it. I’m an evangelical atheist and I’m proud of it. 
MisterEcks:
quote:
I find this to be contradictory to my understanding of agnosticism. I understand agnosticism as simply being of the position that one does not know what is not out there. In your last post you sounded more convinced that nothing is out there, which sounds more like atheism to me. Feel free to let me know where my understanding is lacking.
I can get your point regarding the evangelical atheists...I think Guadere made some point about hard vs soft atheists. I DO indeed think you were splitting hairs though. Still I have no doubt that there are many atheists who believe that there is no God, yet understand that their belief is merely that, and that they might be wrong. I agree it is fair to contrast them with those who assert without doubt that they are correct, and anyone who holds a differing viewpoint is inherintly wrong. This seems more dogmatic to me, based on faith regarding God (or his/her absence) and thus in kind to a religion.In response to avalongod
Science has proved that God is not need to explain a number of things. Science has been a great tool for atheists. True, science has not addressed the question of “is there a God?” What science has done is shown that we do not need God to explain how we got here, how species came about, or any number of other problems. Before science you could be an atheist, but it was much harder. So yes, my atheism is based on my knowledge of science. If I had no knowledge of various scientific principles, I might be forced to turn to religion to explain things.
**
You are saying that if I claim that the sun will not turn into a Pegasus, that is a position based on faith. It may technically be so, but that is worlds away from the faith required by religion.
Just to muddy the waters a little further here: I consider myself a “faith-based” (though I like “fideist” better :)) atheist. That is, my belief that there isn’t a God is founded primarily on an internal irrational conviction, apparently much like the conviction of God’s existence reported by many of my religious friends. It just seems to make more sense to me that way; it’s not the result of a rational process, although of course rational processes can be used to support my conclusion, as they can for all faiths. (In fact, when non-atheist proselytizers ask me why I’m an atheist I generally reply, “It’s just the way God made me,” and I really recommend this response because while they’re trying to figure it out you can say goodbye and move on. :))
So I would never assert “There is no God,” because I don’t approve of presenting faith as fact (you wind up like our mercifully departed FriendofGod). But I don’t call myself an agnostic, because to me that implies that you haven’t really got any conviction one way or the other, and I certainly have. (This is tough for some folks to grasp, and in fact my lifelong best friend persists in telling me I’m an agnostic rather than an atheist. Okay dear, whatever.)
I don’t assert that all other atheists also base their beliefs on faith; some may (and it sounds from other posters’ comments as though many do) approach the question just on the basis of the rules of evidence and rational processes that they’d apply to any other question. So they come to the conclusion that there’s no God in the same way that they come to the conclusion that the earth is billions of years old: “it’s the best theory we’ve got that fits the known facts, so I’ll believe it.” To me, though, belief in a deity is like Euclid’s fifth postulate: you can deduce an equally self-consistent system with it or without it, and there’s nothing inside the system of deductions that tells you whether or not the postulate is true.
So I’d certainly have no problem with calling my particular flavor of atheism a religion. And that attitude has the great advantage that you can argue against anti-atheist religious discrimination. Has anyone noticed how blithely many religious types (usually Jeezers but many in more mainstream denominations too, and not just Christians) will still insult atheists when they would not dream of being similarly offensive to members of a different denomination? I saw a church sign last weekend that said “An Atheist Has No Invisible Means of Support.” [Pit-type comment suppressed.] These same people would not dare put up a sign that read “Jews Reject the Love of Christ” or “Hindus Are Pagan Idolaters”, although those statements are equally true in the view of traditional Christian theology. But the decencies of public discourse require them at least to pretend to respect the beliefs of Jews and Hindus. Atheists, on the other hand, are exempted from the ecumenical treaty: nobody has to act as though we too are decent people who value our beliefs and deserve courtesy, they can just whale on us whenever they feel like it. Dang, that annoys me.
Actually, it also makes me grateful for the respect and courtesy that the vast majority of theists accord us here on this board. There may not be too many of them reading an is-atheism-a-religion thread, but for those who are here—thank you, folks.
Kimstu
For the record, I don’t for one minute think that Gaudere’s atheism/agnostocism/IPUism/whateverism is a religious belief. She responds because this is the Great Debates forum. Wouldn’t be much debating if it weren’t for people like her.
As to why I don’t respond as much, well, Satan ol’ pal, I’m afraid you’ve read too much into it. The main reason I don’t reply as much as Gaudere does is that I don’t have time!
In all seriousness, I wish I had more time to devote to some of the topics she hits. Often, I sign on to find that she’s already said everything I would have said, thus saving me the time and trouble. Also, sometimes I get bored with certain aspects of these discussions, so I only go after certain points (as you noted correctly) whereas she apparently has more youth and vigor.
I also take exception to your statement from the OP:
When pinned? I haven’t yet met a fundamentalist who can “pin” me! 
But seriously, it’s not an “admission,” and neither of us only note it “when pinned.” I repeat it often. I’ve written a freaking magazine article on it (for Skeptical Inquirer), fercryingoutloud! However, we figure that enough people around here know our positions that we don’t have to repeat it in every freaking message. I think people would get rather bored if we did. Yes, this can occasionally cause a minor misunderstanding with a newbie, but it’s quickly explained and taken care of.
All in all, I gotta tell ya, I think you’re reading too much into this whole thing.
By the way (boy, I’m just all over this thread, but since I figured so prominently in the OP I guess that makes sense), I do not consider arguing with someone’s beliefs to necessarily be witnessing. If someone doesn’t want to debate what they say and tells you so, that’s cool, although I don’t think you should expect that in a forum named Great Debates! If someone posted OPs like “Why theists are wrong! God doesn’t exist! Leave your stupid faith and join the One True Way!”, that would arguably be considered witnessing. But here in GD we argue with each other about just about everything, and even people who don’t personally dispute someone’s beliefs will often put on a Devil’s Advocate Hat to point out what they think is a flawed argument. And when Libertarian grilled us atheists about our beliefs for 1000+ posts, I never thought of him as witnessing for Christianity; he just wanted to understand atheism.
When something doesn’t make sense to me, I say “but what about this? And if this is so, then what about this? Are you saying this? But then…” and so on. 
What else should I do? Just assume that I’m right about how something doesn’t make sense, and they’re not sharp enough to have an answer to my questions? Or assume that there is an answer to my questions, but just not bother to find out what it is? We’re fighting ignorance here, and I think that includes mine. 
(Besides, sometimes I am right and something honestly doesn’t make any sense. )
Libertarian wrote:
I had no idea it was possible to make “Ayn Rand” into a registered trademark.
– tracer, heating up a can of Ayn Rand® brand pork and beans
The problem with trying to call atheism a religion, is that atheism is not any kind of homogeneous belief system. Even the blanket statement “atheism is based on reason and science” is not correct in that there are atheist Buddhists and Taoists and mystics. The only thing atheism defines is a lack in belief of god(s). Hell, FoG is an atheist when it comes to any god besides his own. Why do we even need a word for it? We don’t have words to describe lack of belief in faeries, dragons, aliens. What you seem to be describing, Satan, are “personal religions” which is a whole nother kettle of fish.
As for Agnostics…there are two basic types: Soft Agnostics, whose position is “I don’t know if there are gods,” and Hard Agnostics, who say “It is impossible to know if there are or are not any gods.” There aren’t many of us Hard Agnostics because it’s not really consistent to say “I’m positive that we can’t be positive.” I manage somehow.
pinqy
quote:
Oldscratch said:
Your post (I believe) reflects some misconceptions regarding exactly what science has demonstrated and what it purports to demonstrate. Once again, science demonstrates lots of information, but does not speak to whether a God had a hand in bringing about any of these phenomenon. Given that the world works along many observable consistent principles is not inconsistent with the notion of a god who would also be consistent. Does science say that a god is necessary for the universe to be as it is? Of course not. But does science suggest that there MUST not be a god for the universe to be as it is? Also of course not. Science is strictly neutral on this issue. Your attempts to suggest that science has "proven" that god is not necessary seems to reflect a basic misunderstanding of epistemological issues in science. Thus, once more, your assertions are based purely on your interpretations of science, not scientific fact. If you demand that your interpretations be accepted as fact you are "witnessing" in my eyes, and thus coming from a position of faith.Quoteth Satan:
You'll always get someone who will insist the damn thing is an aardvark.There are logical arguments for the existence of God (you personally might not buy 'em, but they exist). Aquinas’s “Unmoved Mover” argument is one I always found satisfying, though, admittedly, it leaves unanswered many other questions about the nature of God.
My very best friend in the world, a person as kind and generous and tolerant as you could hope to find, happens to be an atheist. How he arrived at this worldview is difficult to understand completely, but it’s one he holds onto strenuously and with apparent affection. He seems to derive a great deal of comfort from the sentiment.
Anyway, one day he and I were discussing the Aristotle/Aquinas notions of “moved movers.” My pal agreed that the syllogism seemed to hold water, that an infinite regression of physical agents was not logical–ergo, the Unmoved Mover (God!). He bought the logic.
“But,” he added, “it makes sense only given what we currently understand about the physical world. Why can’t there be some aspect of physics that absolutely allows for this infinite regression, that loops time in some way, that manipulates matter and time and energy in a manner that we simply don’t understand with our current wisdom?”
I applauded him for this heartfelt act of faith. That he allowed for this possibility within physics without a single shred of evidence to support it was remarkable. He suggested that if there was a real God, I’d have been hit with a thunderbolt for my smugness.
Anyway, I don’t offer this up because I’m assigning these motives or thoughts to Gaudere or David B, nor am I inviting a critique of this school of thought. I merely point out that I have personally witnessed at least one instance of a real faith in atheism that survived even a logically sound (at least from this particular atheist’s perspective) assault.
An interesting reaction to Bob’s post…it gave me some things to reflect on. It seems to me fairly evident that many religious folk are adamant that their religions be correct, because association with such a religion becomes a part of that person’s personal image of self.
Now what struck me from Bob’s post was his note that many atheists seem to attain a sense of personal satisfaction toward atheism, indeed they are fond of it. As such, these same individuals may vehemently oppose non-atheist view points (often invoking science, reason, etc.) not because they are truly being objective observers of the given information, but rather because opposing views are threatening to their personal ideology, and hence to their own self image. I agree that some atheists individuals may do this, while others may not, much the same as some religious folks are open-minded and others are not. Perhaps here we see the similarities between atheism as “practiced” by many, and more typical religions. For the individual who’s belief system becomes synonymous with self-identity, they must see their belief system as fact, otherwise they must accept that some part of themselves is inherintly flawed or irrational.
I am an atheist. I have no religious belief. I am firmly convinced, based upon the evidence, that no God(s) or Goddess(es) exist. This conviction is not based upon faith any more than my conviction that the sun will exist tomorrow is based on faith.
Avalongod:
You seem to be missing an important element of Old Scratch’s post. Science has demonstrated that God is unnecessary to explain a number of things which were once pointed to by religious men as proof of God’s presence. You are correct, of course, that this does not prove God dooes not exist. It is not possible to prove that anything does not exist. This is a red herring.
As others have mentioned, faith is an affirmative process. My atheism is not an affirmative process. I will happily tell you that God does not exist. I will equally happily tell Gaudere that the IPU does not exist. Both statements represent my unwillingness to affirm the existence of beings for which we have no good evidence. Should the evidence appear, I would obviously re-examine my position.
I think many religious people would like to consider atheism a religion because faith is so central to their lives that they have a difficult time understanding those of us who live happily without it. Nevertheless, the fact is that I do not require faith to believe the Universe is as it appears. My conviction, of course, cannot be absolute. It is, however, quite strong enough to let me sleep comfortably at night.
Gaudere said:
Heh…no, but now I want one.
oldscratch said:
I won’t even charge you a fee for using it…unless you misspell my name again.
avalongod said:
Et tu, Brutus?
I think you are defining agnostic as “one who cannot make up his/her mind where the truth lies.” The term does get used in this sense, but that’s not what I mean by it.
It’s not that I’m convinced that nothing is out there–I don’t know whether anything is out there or not. If there is something out there, I don’t know what it is.
What I’m convinced of is that you (and everyone else) also don’t know what is or is not out there. This applies to atheists as well as Christians–atheists have come to a conclusion on the subject, I don’t believe anyone’s conclusions other than my own…and I don’t have any.
Now I suppose I could be considered an atheist in that I believe in no god or gods that mankind has managed to postulate. I don’t believe in ______ (fill in favorite deity) or ______ (fill in favorite holy book)–in that sense I am an atheist/unbeliever to every religion. But that doesn’t mean I reject the possibility that there may be one or more of what we might define as a “god” out there, or that there may be states of being after what we know as death. Maybe there is, and maybe there isn’t. I’ll find out one way or another soon enough.
I think (I assume you’ll correct me if I’m wrong) that your main complaint is with my terminology, since you seem to be agreeing with what I said otherwise. This doesn’t surprise me–I’ve had this discussion with any number of people, and I don’t recall anyone who liked my “lack of belief versus belief of a lack” distinction. I know what I’m talking about, and I think it makes perfect sense, but I seem to be a minority of one.
pinqy said:
As I told my overtly Christian mother at a holiday dinner: “I’ll believe it when I see it. Now please pass the frigging gravy.”
quote:
Actually I got that point just fine. MY point is that this is not a valid position from which to make a definitive conclusion. Science by the way has not particularly made any statement that god is unecessary. You might be thinking of contradictions between science and organized religions, in which science notes that things work in nice mechanistic principles more often than not. this neither demonstrates however that a god is necessary or that a god is unnecessary. You have mistaken the value of scientific contributions and are using the mantle of "science" to defend your epistemological opinion. Atheist, as a position which makes a conclusive stand in the absence of any evidence to support that stand, is not basing that stand upon science but on faith. Claiming that science is on your side is a rationalization, but you are wrong. Science is neutral in this matter.
quote
~~~It is not possible to prove that anything does not exist.
this is untrue and contradicts the logic of modus tollens upon which falsificationism exists. As long as you can provide a falsifyable hypothesis, you can indeed prove that hypothesis is not true/does not exist. You can never prove that it DOES exist. The problem with the "God" question is coming up with a falsifyable way to study it. Again, as this has not yet been done, there is no scientific evidence for or against God.
quote:
~~~What I'm convinced of is that you (and everyone else) also don't know what is or is not out there.
with this I would agree.Gaudere said:
Do not!
Avalongod said:
Depends how you look at it.
For example, older cultures used to worship sun gods, who made the sun rise, move across the sky, and set. Science now explains the apparent movement of the sun (actually, of course, rotation of the Earth), and thus the sun god is unnecessary as an explanation.
Similarly, the Christian God used to be necessary to creation, by making Adam and Eve and all the animals, etc. Now, however, science has explained evolution and we don’t need a God explanation for that, either.
Now, neither of these things means that science is saying (or can say) there isn’t a sun god or a Christian god, just that there doesn’t need to be one for the things that we are discussing.